Gerald Seymour - At Close Quarters

Crane awoke.

God, and did he do it easily? For Holt it was a miracle of the world, Crane waking. A fast rub of the eye, half of a stifled yawn, a vicious scratch at the armpit, a scowl and a grin, and Crane was awake.

There were small figures moving from the tents, there was the first tinkle of a transistor radio playing music and travelling against the wind.

"Did you sleep all right?"

"I slept fine… what's moving?"

"Starting to be shit-shower-shave time down there.

You know, Mr Crane, it's fantastic, us being here, them being there. I mean, it's what you said would happen, but until I was here perhaps I didn't ever quite believe it."

"You think too much, youngster, that's the problem of education."

"How's the eye?"

"Worry about yourself."

Holt heard the pitch of Crane's voice drop, he saw him turn away. Crane's tongue was rolling inside his cheeks, like he was cleaning his teeth with his tongue, like the action was a toothpaste substitute.

"What else is moving?"

"A boy over there with sheep, there… " Holt pointed to his right, through the scrim net that masked them.

"Bit of traffic on the road. Nothing else. When do I start looking?"

The binoculars were in Crane's Bergen. Crane shook his head. "Think about it, youngster. Where's the sun?

The sun's straight into us. You put the glasses up and you'll risk burning your eyes out, and you'll risk a lens flash. Neither's clever. You don't do any looking till the sun's a hell of a lot higher. Patience, youngster."

"Mr Crane… "

"Yeah."

"Mr Crane, what happened to the hostage?"

There was a tremor of annoyance across Crane' mouth. "What's it to you?"

"I just wanted to know."

"Are you going to make a thing about it, are you going to puke over me?"

"What happened to him?"

Crane whispered, "There's a cave a quarter of a mile back, that's where they went. We passed about hundred yards higher. I'd say it's where they're going to hold him. Sometimes it's Beirut where they hold them, sometimes it's out in the Beqa'

… would be better in Beirut, won't be a hotel out here."

"Mr Crane… "

"Yeah."

"When we've sniped, when we're heading back… "

"No."

"Nothing we can do?"

"You want to get home, or you want to die? I you want to go home you walk right past* the cave, 1 you want to die you call for tea and scones… Sorry youngster."

Holt hung his head, his words were a murmur, the wind in the scrim netting. "Seems dreadful to leave him."

"Heh, Alexander the Great came through here Nebuchadnezzar was here, the Romans had a go at it There were the Crusaders and the Turks and the Frenc and the Yanks and the Syrians, and my people had a try at it. Everyone's had a go at civilising this place, and Lebanon saw them all off. That's just fact, that's not education. And it's fact that you can't change things Holt, not on your little educated own. You can't change a damned thing… forget him."

"It's rotten to turn our backs on him."

Crane looked for a moment keenly at Holt, didn't speak. He untied the laces of his boots, then pulled the laces tighter through the eyes and made a double bow.

From a pouch in the Bergen he took a strip of chewing gum. He lifted the Armalite onto his lap. Holt watched him. Crane had his face against the netting and his eyes roved across the vista in front, down towards the camp.

Crane's hand settled on Holt's shoulder.

"You'll be all right, youngster."

Holt gagged. "What are you doing?"

"Scouting, going to find myself a hide further down."

"You said that where we'd be lying up would be 1,000 yards."

"I want six hundred," Crane said.

"Is it the eye?"

"I just want six hundred."

"Can't you do it at a thousand?"

"Leave it, Holt." Close to a snarl.

Holt shook his head, didn't believe it. According to Crane's bible there should be no movement by daylight.

According to Crane's text not even an idiot tried to move across open ground after dawn, before dusk.

According to Crane's chapter the team never split.

According to Crane's verse a thousand yards was best for the sniper. He couldn't argue. He stared at Crane.

It was as if his fear, wide eyed, softened Crane.

"I'm not gone long, an hour, may be a little more. In an hour you start to use the glasses… They're all shit down there, they can't see their assholes right now. On my own, just myself, a buzzard overhead won't see me.

I find the place at 600 yards, and I'm back. You spot the bastard for me, we mark him, we follow him, we get to know him. Late afternoon, sun's going down, sun's behind us, sun's into them, that's when I move again.

One shot at 600. I stay put, you stay put, till it's dark.

I come back for you, and we move out… Got it, youngster?"

"Got it, Mr Crane." There was a reed in Holt's voice, like he was a child, afraid to be alone.

The scrim netting was slowly lifted, and then Crane was gone.*

There was a crag boulder to the right of the overhang, and Holt saw the shape of Crane, his outline broken by the camouflage tabs, reach the boulder.

He did not see him afterwards.

Holt screwed his eyes tight. He peered down onto the desolate and featureless ground between himself and the tent camp and he could not find a movement. He could not credit that Noah Crane, on that landscape, had vanished.

Fawzi blinked in the sunlight. He stretched, he yawned, he pulled his trouser belt tighter.

He had slept well, heavily. The smile came to his face.

He had much to be cheerful about. He was casting aside the sleep, he was basking in the sunlight and the memory of the previous evening. Last year's harvest, well stored and well dried leaves, and well packed. Much to smile about, because there were five packages in the locked rear of his jeep and each package weighed 10 kilos, and each kilo was top quality.

The posting in the valley as liaison officer to the recruits' camp had this one salvation, constant access to the old and new marijuana crop. He had done well in the weeks that he had spent setting up the camp and then introducing it to these boys of the Popular Front.

His money was in dollars. Cash dollars, bank notes. For dollars an understanding could be negotiated with the customs officials at the airport. His dollars in cash, less the price of the understanding, could be carried in his hip pocket and in his wallet, to the cities of Rome and Paris and Athens. They were the holy cities he would make his pilgrimage to, when the creep Hamid had gone with the chosen ten to Damascus for the final preparation before the flight to Cyprus and the sea journey to the shoreline of Israel.

Much to be cheerful about, and the most cheering matter for Lieutenant Fawzi was that this would be his last day and his last night in the suffocating tedium of the Beqa'a.

There was a queue of recruits waiting to be served by the cook. He ordered an omelette, three eggs. He said that he wanted coffee. He went back to his tent, pulled out a chair from inside, waited for his food to be brought to him.

The smoke, pungent from the dew damp wood, played across his nostrils.

He held the binoculars as Crane had taught him. His thumb and his forefinger gripped the far end of each lens, and the outstretched palms of his hands shielded the polished glass from the sun.

Holt had stopped looking for Crane. He lay on his stomach, quite still, only allowing his head to move fractionally as he raked over the faces of the magnified figures moving lethargically between the tents.

He had covered the line in front of the cooking area, and the line in front of the latrine screen. He had followed the men as they emerged from their tents, until they ducked back into them.

He could not believe that he had looked with the power of the binoculars into the face of Abu Hamid and had not known him. He had seen no man with a crow's foot scar on his cheek. He had seen no man walk with the rolling gait of Abu Hamid crossing the street in front of the Oreanda Hotel. He could remember the long sitting wait on the hard bench in the corridor leading to the cell block of the police station in Tel Aviv.